Downloaded Camtasia Studio 8 from TechSmith and decided to give it a try. As an experiment, started watching the video tutorials before playing around with the software to learn how it works. The first video is called Prepare, Script, Audio. It suggests

1) Cleaning up images on the video monitor in order not to distract your audience

2) Write a script (and they very helpfully include a downloadable example)

According to WHOIS, by October 9th, 2012 there were a total of 142,287,027 top level domains (COM, NET, ORG, INFO, BIZ, US). Considering picking a domain name has been done a 150 million times before, it is still amazing how easy it is to do it wrong.

Despite the brute force method favored by some registration tools, picking a domain name is still more art than science. No matter what the site's primary purpose, the ideal domain names would display the same cardinal qualities. The qualities a domain name must posses to be ideal are that i be:

unique

descriptive

memorable

easy to type

and rank highly in search engines optimization (SEO).

But like any kind of perfection, picking the ideal domain name can be elusive. Some of these qualities tend to be mutually exclusive which introduces perfection's most implacable enemy into the process - compromise.

Another challenge to picking the perfect domain name is, like other art, the domain picking experiences fads. At one time dashes in domain names where considered very de jure because of the belief that search engines would parse them gaining some additional optimization juice. Later completely made up names became very popular. Neither fads has led to ideal domain names in my opinion since the former made domain names harder to type and the latter made them harder to remember. Such is the nature of fads to emphasise one quality at the expense of others.

Fortunately here math comes to the rescue. For an 8 character domain name using numbers and letters there are 2,600,000,000,000 possible combindations (2.61282843 X 10 to the 12th). Additionally on any given day there are 100,000 domain names that are not renewed widening the pool of choices. So practice compromise to achieve perfection and pick the ideal name by following these steps:

Choose a Unique Name

This ideal you will be certain to achieve because your domain name must be unique and this requirement is enforced by a large, powerful international governing body. Unfortunately for perfection, the fact that so many domain names have already been registered almost demands compromise. My understanding is that all 1, 2, and 3 letter word combinations have been registered, as well as every word in the English language. So the most important criteria for choosing a domain name quickly becomes availability.

To find the ideal domain name requires looking at a lot of options and then determining which can be used. The easiest way to do this is to start with a few seed words. Having a few terms in mind creates a mental platform and promotes better focus on the task. The list does not have to exhaustive. You only need a few seed words, because you can use search engine optimization to expand out the list.

For example, if you are picking a domain name for a construction company, you might start with seed words such as "construction, builder, contractor, fix". From there, a good course of action is to use a keyword tool like Google Adwords to analyze how often prospective customers are actually searching for these terms. Google Adwords will also suggest similar terms. This provides a sound foundation later for another cardinal virtue of idea domain names, search engine optimization. To continue the example, here is what an analysis of these seed words reveals.

Keyword

Local Monthly Searches (United States)

home

60,500

construction

49,500

home improvement

49,500

handyman

22,200

contractor

14,800

In my experience the results are almost always surprising. Some seed words, like fix and builder, are not searched all that often in this context. Other words that were not in the seed list, like handyman, are used much more frequently by prospective customers.

Once you understand how people search for your offering, you now pair highly ranked terms together, try prefixes or suffixes, experiment with verbs and adjectives, include brands and place names (if the business is local) to attemt to find truly unique domain names. Don't be discouraged if your favorite name is already taken.

In addition it might be possible to buy the ideal domain name from its current owner. There exists today a healthly aftermarket for domain names. Although most transactions are private, according to Wikipedia the most expensive domain names on record were Insure.com for $16 million, Sex.com for $14 million, Fund.com for £9.99 million and Porn.com for $9.5 million. Most names can be purchased for much, much less than $10 million, so this might be an option worth considering for those who are well funded.

Make it Descriptive

Now the time has come to connect the words together to create meaningful domain names such as HomeConstructionBoulder.com or HandymanLA.com.

Make it Memorable

For the sake of readability it is important to capitalize the first letter of an word.

But be careful. Domain names are case insensitive and capitalization can make a difference in meaning. For example WhoRepresents.com, a popular listing of agents can also be seen as WhorePresents.com. A therapists' referal network named TherapistFinder.com in other lights was seen as TheRapistFinder.com. ExpertsExchange.com was also called ExpertSexChange.com which might be a little too memoriable.

Unlike many things in life, here shorter is better. The fewer characters customers needs to type the easier a domain name usually is to remember, and the harder to mispell. This is paricularily important if you are going to use the domain name for email addresses. Shorter does come at a cost since it impacts the goal of the name being descriptive and being used to enhance your search engine optimization.

One compromise that might be worth considering is using a different domain name for email. You could use SewardCO for email, and SewardConstructionCo for description and search engine optimation. The SewardCO.com domain name would be pointed at the SewardConstructionCO.com site. If you had an email addess, say Doug@SewardCO.com, you could have an email address at Doug@SewardConstructionCO.com that redirected mail to the same address.

Third party support provider Rimini Street has hired Andrew Powell to manage its Asia-Pacific business. Powell has over 15 years industry experience, first as a general manager with NTT DATA Business Solutions and before that as regional vice president at Sabre Airline Solutions based in Singapore.
"There is exceptional demand for the benefits of third-party support in the Asia-Pacific region," said Powell.
He is based in Australia and can be reached at apowell@riministreet.com.

I have never forgotten the first person I watched die in Hospice. He was about my age, unconscious the whole time I was there, and breathing in the irregular/regular way I later came to recognize as a death rattle.

What was haunting was a picture on his food tray.

You could tell from the hair styles it was taken in mid-80's. A much younger version of the man now struggling for breath could be seen in the picture - his hair was thick and black and cut into a mullet. He wore a colorful Hawaiian shirt of ladies and luaus. The weather in the picture was warm and sunny and his face was uncreased and untroubled. The picture might have been taken at an amusement park, and he stood in the middle of a happy crowd with his back facing the entrance to some sort of ride. It looked like a happy day.

With him in the picture was a very pretty young blonde woman. She wore a provocative white top and a very short skirt and posed suggestively for the camera by pressing one leg against his abdomen which he held in his hand to keep her from falling. Although she had draped her arms around his neck to steady herself, her attention was drawn towards the camera at which she smiled lasciviously. She looked like someone who it have been a lot of fun to spend time with in amusement park or anywhere else.

Draped across picture was a plastic crucifix to make some sort of memorial.

Although it was a dying man's, it was the woman in it who made the picture haunting. As St. Augustine observed, the ties between people are not really very strong. Who was she and what did she mean to the dying man? How did the picture and crucifix get there? Why was he dying alone, and where was she now?

I never found out the answers to these questions because they died with the man but I still think of that picture.

When I do, it reminds me we need to enjoy the few happy times fate rations us because they are a fleeting as a flirtatiousness smile, an amusement park ride or a cloud passing the sun on a warm day.

Any good content strategy must include a plan to harness the Public Relations potential of social media sites. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest (as well as many other social media too numerous to all list here) have become important places to promote business, although the exact value they add is sometimes still uncertain to many executives.

No matter what your social media content strategy, whether it is to create fresh content every social media site out there or you focus your efforts on repurposing other content on just one or two sites, thinking about how to create and share content across social media has important implications for SEO and must be thought through from the beginning.

If you're working on a large website, you may just be contributing content ideas to the social media team. On a smaller project you may be doing all the content generation and distribution yourself. Either way, here are a few suggestions to get started.

The first step is to identify which social media sites to target. Not every site will appropriate for your message. Create content and write the copy in a style appropriate for each site, and remember that each site works differently.
Think about how and when to publish on each site and include
social media in the content matrix, the calendar, and any other planning
tools you are using. This is an ongoing process so plan to review the results regularly.

You have think about how to distinctly summarize the blog post to make it compelling Facebook content. The posting has to include a URL, but because a standard URL might be too long, a service like Bitly can shorten the URL. Although mostly used on Twitter (where it is the default standard) creating your own shortened URL allows you to track usage. For example blog posts are particularly good content to promote through social media. A great photo that is also kind of playful lends itself well to Facebook. A good photo can be an effective way of attracting attention and on Facebook one of the best ways of promotion. If you have a lot of visual content, Pinterest is all about pictures.

Twitter can be another effective channel to promote content. Twitter is an especially good great place to give people calls to action and to announce truly newsworthy content. Shortening the URL is especially important on Twitter where Bitly is, in fact, the default (but you can't track it if you use the default. Besides blog posts rich media content is also a good candidate for promotion on social media.

There are services available like Namecheck, that will do an aggregated search to see what names might be available. Even if you are not planning to use all of the social media sites today, it's not a
bad idea to get them reserved in advance just to protect the name for the future.

After joining each social media site, its good idea to spend some time lurking on the site to detemine the best way to make use of its unique audience, organization, and framework. That way you can start to plan your strategy before posting.

Two of the best ways to build an audience is by regularly posting to a blog, send out an email newsletter. What is the difference? At heart, both a blog and a newsletter are webpages. Each can contain text, images, and distinctive formatting styles. What is different about the two are the expectations of the readers and the style of the writers. Let's start examining the difference starting with a Wikipedia definition. According to that popular site:

A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one topic that is of interest to its subscribers. Many newsletters are published by clubs, churches, associations, and businesses to provide highly specialized information that is only of interest to their members, customers or employees. Sending newsletters to customers and prospects is a common marketing strategy. General attributes of newsletters include news and upcoming events of the related organization, as well as contact information for general inquiries.

For a small site, it may be most efficient to set the blog up so that each post gets sent to subscribers via email. For bigger companies, combining a blog and newsletter may not work as well, because blogs and newsletters typically serve different purposes in the mind of the reader.

In a large organizations, email newsletters are often used as a way to stay in touch with customers, offer discounts on products, and share product information such as new releases. Email newsletters work best when they are sent as a series that starts
by offering the reader useful and valuable content then earns the right to include a sales message over time.

When someone first subscribes to a email newsletter, sending them a welcome
message, thanking them, and letting them know what kind of content to expect, and then offering something of value right away - a discount coupon, a tip, or some kind of useful information. Follow up with another useful tip a week or so later, and a week after that with a valuable insight gives the reader time to determine the value of the newsletter. Wait until the fourth message before you suggesting your subscribers take a major action such as buying something or using your service.
Ideally at that point offer them a discount or another incentive along with that call to action.

Using a series of email messages to build a connection with your audience before approaching them with a significant call to action will yield better results. Email content should be concise, the HTML should be basic, and the newsletter should contain a limited the number of graphics since email programs lag significantly behind web browsers in adoption of standards and new features.

Some email best practices:

Include some call to action (even it is only to visit your website),

Personalize the emails as much as possible,

write a killer subject lines.

Studies show that writing a compelling subject line is the single most important thing when it comes to getting people to open your email in the first place.

A few suggestions for writing effective subject lines. Don't use the same generic subject every time, include something that refers to the contents of the email every time. Write the subject line like a headline: short, compelling and with an invitation to find out more. Limit the subject line to 50 characters (or less) but never use the word free. That may seem counter intuitive, but studies show the word free is associated with no value.

There is also a writing style associated with a newsletter. It is more formal, factual, time based, and event triggered than most other styles. Newsletters typically serve to notify subscribers of change. They should be written concisely, and to the point, and the best one provide a call to action for those who are interested in taking action based on them. In general, people process information better in smaller chunks, and it is better to dribble information out to them.

As time passes, some of the information in a newsletter will become stale. For example, newsletters may contain information about upcoming events which is not very useful once that event has passed. Other articles on so called "evergreen" topics are usually relevant for a much longer time after the newsletter is released. From a search engine perspective, this mix of out of date and useful information reduces the ranking of the useful information, causing it to show up lower in search results.

In contrast to email newsletters, blogs should have a very different style. Let's examine the popular understanding of blogs based again on Wikipedia.

A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log) is a discussion site consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs were historically the work of a single individual, more recently blogs written by a large numbers of authors and professionally edited from newspapers, universities, think tanks, interest groups and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. Although not a requirement, most good quality blogs allow visitors to leave comments. Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs, but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important contribution to the popularity of many blogs. As of 16 February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence.

Most readers expect to get more value, explaination, or entertainment from a blog post than a newsletter. They expect insight not just news. While a good newsletter can be measured by how quickly it can be read, a good blog post is measure by how long it takes to read. Newsletters are pushed to the reader, blog post are sought out by the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the topic. Therefore blog posts need to be used for more than just to announce a sale or that products and services are available for sale.

From a writing perspective the content style of a blog is less formal, more personal, more detailed, more descriptive and as long as the topic demands. They can be less objective and more subjective, less factual and more opinionated. They can be used to explain policies, explore trends, even speculate about the future and test new ideas. The best ones invite a dialogue with the reader. Sometimes the best information comes not from the posting itself but from the comments made in reaction to the post.

No matter how evergreen the content, blogs are better when they are published frequently and receive regular updates so they are like newsletter from that perspective. Thanks to the technology, they often easier to post new content to a blog than to other parts of the website. Search engines measure and reward new content.

When planning a the content strategy keep in mind different kinds of content yield to different styles in different channels but that they can be used to reinforce and promote one another. For example the change in business model might be first be twitted - Acme Anvils Changes Business Model. Then announced publically in a press release. Then annouced to customers and other interested parties in a newsletter. Then explained in a blog posting and eventually hopefully included in a Harvard Business School Study.

And the W3C has an even more complete description of the form attribute standard. The complex part of creating a form is determining what happens on the backend and coding it. Does the data go into a data base, is it used to generate an email, or is it fed into an API? This is further complicated by security concerns. If you don't host the site (and even if you do) you may run into an steel curtain set up to prevent hackers from submitting executable code through the form to compromise the server. These security measures can make setting up even a simple form like the example above difficult.

Yet the challenge of complexity should not be discouraging. Forms are complex because they can be used in many different ways from gathering feedback, to tracking bugs, to accepting payments, to allowing people to search the site's content. Complexity has also created a demand for simplier online form services such as EMailMeForm, Adobe FormsCentral and WuFoo. You can do a search on "online form generator" or "online form builder" and find even more. Most sites have a freemium model which allows the form builder tools to be tried before purchase which is a good way to evaluate them.

Adobes' Portable Document Format (PDF) can also used to design interactive forms that can be filled out and submitted online. Interactive PDF's have the additional advantage of preserve the formatting of a form destined for print and can be filled out offline. W-9 Forms and other tax forms are often saved this way.

The online service at Adobe FormsCentral, offers the option of creating an HTML form or a PDF form. That means work can saved now and finished later. If all the work is not finished in one setting, it can be completed in sessions which is helpful dealing with very long or very complex forms.
The more easy a form is to fill out and submit, the more likely someone will take the time to complete it.

Large companies or organizations, may already have an inhouse system to create online forms, and even a team of programmers to help create them. Any good content strategy will review this approach, especially if they've been using the same system for long time. The technology available to create and process form data has evolved dramatically over the years, and it may be time well spent to assess new ways to collect and store information using forms.

While aa form can be used on a contact page, many web designs hide email addresses by using a form so that scrapers can't pick email addresses up off the web. Forcing a visitor to the site to fill out a form to contact the company reduces the number of responses, because many people are very dubious about filling them in. If one of the goals of the website is to get visitors to make contact, this is not a productive approach.

Contact pages should a variety of ways that visitors can use reach out, starting with the phone number and an email address displayed prominently at the top in HTML text format. Links to social media sites are also good to include. In general, interactive forms are best used to collect information and save it into a database, to prescreen visitors by asking specific questions, when you're asking people to fill out an application, when collecting lots of detailed information, and when you're asking people to sign up for an email newsletter.

The first place to start a coherent content strategy is to clearly understand the goals for the site. Having a clear objective is a more powerful motivator than a murky one, so the first question to ask any new client is:

What is your goal in creating or redesigning your website?

Every future decision about content should support the client's goals. It is usually best practice to limit these to only three goals. When working for a large organization, interviews with different department heads will often result different answers and different goals. On a big project, you may need to set different goals for different parts of the site. On really big sites, you may need to treat each section as its own site to manage conflicting goals.

Despite this, no matter how large the site, best practice requires that if it is at all possible, get everyone to agree on as many of the three highest level goals as possible so that everyone can get behind at least one clear objective.

For example a typical client might have these goals for their site:

attract new customers,

promote addition services to existing customers,

educate customers.

Goals can be redefined as the project develops, but the more you have beyond three the more you defeat the purpose of using these goals to manage scope later. Managing expectations and setting some limits on what can and should be done
is one of the important steps in developing a content strategy.
The more specific, measurable, and realistic the goals are, the better they will serve the strategy.

As you develop the list of content for the website, come back to these goals anytime there is a major decision, and revisiting them. Make them more and more specific over time. As they get more specific it will be to ensure the content that gets created support the key objectives of the site.

Good interview skills and effective use of questionnaires can help define goals, better understand audiences, and develop an overall more coherent strategy towards content. As far as interviews go, the first step in approaching one is to do your homework. Taking the time to prepare in advance, will yield better results both during the interview itself and afterwards when it comes time to turn the results into content.

The reason why homework matters is respect. You don't want to waste the subject of your interview's time with questions that are too simple and or too basic. This may seem obvious, but it undermines your credibility when you ask something that can be found on the first page of a Google or Bing listing.

Showing respect by coming prepared also helps build a connection. Before you can get the best answers from a subject, you have to build rapport, and that's a lot easier when the person you're talking what feels like you have something in common, some appreciation of who they are, and what topics are important to them.

Taking the time to research the backgrounds of your subjects can build rapport provided they don't feel like you are stalking them. Go beyond Google's front page, and check YouTube videos and see if your subject has done a speech that you can watch in advance. It might also help to check LinkedIn and Google Groups and blogs. Professional associations are also good places to look as is Google News and the relevant trade publications. Even if your subject isn't famous enough to make the evening news, they may be profiled in their alumni magazine. Finding small details about a person's background helps build rapport but don't push the personal side.
If the subject is busy and all business, you should be too.

No matter what, the most important thing in any good interview is listening. Ask a few questions and don't forget your job is to listen.

Here is a list of some standard content strategy interview questions:

What are your top goals for the site?

What are the most common complaints you get about the current website or content you have online?

What are the three most common questions your customers / constituents / stakeholders ask (online or off)?

What has gotten you the best response?

What content on your site has attracted the most compliments / appreciation / results?

What do you think you are currently best known for?

Are there awards, publications, or appearances we can include on the site to help build your credibility?

Do you have any content that’s not already on the site that you think should be there?

Is there content you know you’d like added to the site that hasn’t been created yet?

Are there current clients / constituents / stakeholders we can ask for testimonials?

What do you know about the people who will visit your Web site?

What do you want users to do on your website or as a result of visiting your site?

If we were successful beyond your wildest dreams, what would that look like?

What plans do you have over the next 6 months to 2 years that we should know about as we develop the content strategy?

Is there anything I’ve missed that you want to add?

Who should I interview next?

Especially on a big project, It is a good idea to always start an interview by asking about the most important goal of the project. Different stakeholders are likely to be aiming for different goals, so its important to ask this question in every interview. It is also helpful to ask people about questions and complaints they get about the current site, because that often leads to what new content should be added to a site. People are quick to complain but slow to compliment so they can often carry more weight. If the current content is getting good results, you want to know that too. Also ask if there's content that's not on the website that should be.
Often the most current content was either created too late or it just didn't get to the right people to be included on the site. Asking about specific call to action that stakeholders want visitors to take on the site is also illuminating. Then there are the peak questions like if the site was successful beyond your wildest dreams, what would that look like. Finishing wiht an open ended question like, "Is there anything I've missed that you want to add? gives your subject a chance to include topics which you may have forgotten or you may not have even thought of asking in the first place. Finally, make sure you find out if there is anyone else who should interviewed.

As you do research, don't be afraid to ask for clarification. If there is something you don't understand, you can pretty much guarantee it needs to be better explained on the website.

Although taking the time to conduct interviews early in the process can help you, it's often best to schedule interview at key stages throughout the process.
Especially if you're working for a big company, you may want to start by interviewing a couple of people and then go back and conduct more detailed interviews with more people later.
If you're working with just one client, you may hold a series of meetings, but if you're working with a big company, you may need to create a content strategy team made up of representatives of each stake-holding departments, and meet with them regularly.

When it comes to focus, the word 'no' is one the most powerful words in the English language. Although some people don't have a difficult time saying no to others, they have a hard time saying no to themselves. Entrepreneurs, and other very creative people come up with many new ideas that end up competing for their attention. Instead of saying no to some of these ideas and finishing others, they put some work into new ideas and end up spreading themselves (and their resources too thin). I know I do this. At root it may be because I am afraid of forgetting a good idea.

Author Dave Crenshaw suggests one way to learn say no to new ideas is to keep a perhaps list. A perhaps list is different from a to do list and can be filled with thoughts, ideas, and innovations - really anything that comes into your head. What makes it different from a to do list is commitment. A perhaps list is the place to down things in writing that you might want to do someday but are not yet ready to take on. Putting ideas as them come into your head, frees you from having to act on them immediately to remember them. They can be tested later using techniques like the Validation Board. The Perhaps List also allows you to consider ideas later on without losing focus now.

Crenshaw recommends set a recurring appointment for yourself to review your perhaps list, once a month to once every three months. At that point you can review your perhaps list and take a moment and decide whether or not you want to take action on that idea then, delete it, or leave it on the list to review yet again in the future.

Before saying yes to new ideas you have to be realistic. Ask yourself, when are you going to have time to do it? Do you need to do it now or can you do it later?
Crenshaw claims if you are using your calendar to budget time, procrastination can be your friend. How? If you need to add something new to your calendar--a new project, a new activity, a new undertaking - put it into your calendar to begin working on it as late as possible. This will allow you to focus on the tasks at hand and not get distracted by every idea that pops into your head.

By learning the skill of actively saying no to yourself, you won't be stretched as thin and you be able to better focus and complete the projects that you already have undertaken and will see more success by bringing projects to completion before switching your attention. Sounds like a solid concept to me.